


amaranth pink

by dimplewoo



Series: every color that i see [2]
Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Mentioned Lee Minhyuk (Monsta X), Nightmare, Sleep Paralysis, Spooning, Synesthesia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-06
Updated: 2019-04-06
Packaged: 2020-01-05 20:22:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18373412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dimplewoo/pseuds/dimplewoo
Summary: Hyunwoo releases the breath he’d been holding, and when Kihyun responds with a sigh of his own, he knows he is also awake and way past the point of falling back asleep, so he might as well take his chance before he misses it and unlodges the cough that had settled at the back of his throat.“I need water,” Hyunwoo starts with a mumble, slowly fumbling with the duvet cover to free his left hand while a sleepy but perceptive Kihyun lifts himself up enough to let him free his other arm, “I’ll be right back.”(or: Hyunwoo has a nightmare and Kihyun makes him feel safe.)





	amaranth pink

**Author's Note:**

> this isn't necessarily a second part of "robin's egg blue" but it's in the same universe; you can read it separately but the whole colors thing makes more sense after you've read it.
> 
> i've been having nasty sleep paralysis lately and i needed to let it out somehow. sorry, nunu. i also didn't proof-read this so there are probably some mistakes and typos.
> 
> and yes, kihyun is the big spoon, fight me.
> 
> (the title is a really pretty shade of pink, that is all.)

When Hyunwoo opens his eyes and meets with the street lights billowing on the ceiling of his room, his first few breaths feel forced, as biting and painful as breaking the surface of a freezing lake right before he runs out of air. Huff in, huff out, his chest heaves with panic and his blood beats loud with fear in his own ears. It takes him a few moments to realize where he is, who he is, and what just happened.

 

He wants to turn to his left and check the time on the digital clock that is shadowing the curves of his face with its glowy, pale blue-white numbers, but his head feels stuck, paralyzed, too heavy for his will to have any power over. His limbs don’t answer when he tries to move them, and all he feels is a tingle that starts in his fingertips and fades away as it moves up his arms. He tries to make a fist but nothing happens.

 

So he closes his eyes instead.

 

Except he sees nothing but splotches of dark muddy brown and rotten green, edges ragged and uneven, slowly gnawing into the center of his blank vision from the edge. He wants to open his eyes again, wants to try to check the time again, even when he knows he won’t. Because he can’t.

 

And he hates it.

 

So he decides to find grounding somewhere else. He finds warmth on his right side, hears the gentle rhythmic breathing that cools as it glides over his chest, feels something soft and light tickle his chin with every raise and drop of his own lungs. _Kihyun_. Slowly, his senses come back to him and his limbs feel much lighter as the arm he’s got sprawled over Kihyun’s shoulder blades lightly twitches.

 

Hyunwoo doesn’t realize his breaths are fast and erratic and loud until Kihyun shifts and pushes himself an inch higher and closer to his face, brushing his socked feet against Hyunwoo’s bare legs. The scent of jasmine shampoo reaches him, and once he manages to open his eyes again, he knows.

 

He knows that Minhyuk never actually texted him about the fire. He knows that he never went to the hospital. He knows that the funeral never happened. He knows that he didn’t lose countless nights of sleep grieving. He knows it’s only the paralysis of waking up from a nightmare that has him exhaling, fearful and heavy.

 

So Hyunwoo opens his eyes and meets with the ceiling again, replacing the grungy and rough greens and browns behind his eyelids with soft wisps of a cold orange filtering through semi-opaque curtains. And this time he does find it in him to turn his head to the left and check the time.

 

3:29 AM _._ A deep sigh he was not aware he was holding escapes his nose and dissolves in the warm air of the room. He doesn’t have to be anywhere important within the next five hours, a fact that he feels incredibly grateful for. He runs a hand over his face, blinking once or twice to disperse the burning sensation in his eyes and tries to will himself back to sleep — _tries_ , because all he succeeds in doing is waking Kihyun up.

 

Hyunwoo holds his breath for a few beats, knowing it’ll do nothing but make him breathe faster and heavier once he runs out of air, in hopes that Kihyun will simply fall back asleep just as quick as he had been woken up.

 

“You’re okay, baby,” a hoarse, sleep heavy voice drawls against his neck as Kihyun’s nose brushes Hyunwoo’s cheek, “you’ll be okay.” He snakes up higher and holds him tighter, and Hyunwoo finds himself relaxing immediately. Kihyun’s weight pressing his right side into the mattress and his warmth diffusing to the rest of his body through the soft wool of his shirt are all the comfort he needs, yet wants to get away from it. His skin burns as it touches skin and his chest feels heavy and tight. He wants to get up, get out, do anything just to shake the paralysis off him once and for all.

 

Hyunwoo releases the breath he’d been holding, and when Kihyun responds with a sigh of his own, he knows he is also awake and way past the point of falling back asleep, so he might as well take his chance before he misses it and unlodge the cough that had settled at the back of his throat.

 

“I need water,” Hyunwoo starts with a mumble, slowly fumbling with the duvet cover to free his left hand while a sleepy but perceptive Kihyun lifts himself up enough to let him free his other arm, “I’ll be right back.”

 

Hyunwoo gets up, shoves his feet into whatever slippers they come in contact with first and stumbles towards the door, leaving behind a groaning Kihyun. His hands run over the wall until they guide him to the kitchen where they find the light switch, and it takes him a good minute of squinting to adjust to the brightness that colors the walls a light tint of yellow.

 

Stumbling even further, he reaches for a cup in the cupboard above the workspace and drags his feet to the fridge. The much welcome artificial cold air leaves a trail of goosebumps on his skin as he grabs a water bottle, and Hyunwoo contemplates the idea of hugging it in order to cool himself down before settling for his original plan of drinking the water instead.

 

And he drinks it so fast that the first gulp threatens to close his throat, but the icy water feels refreshing. It’s a most wanted distraction from the throbbing vines around his heart, and he can sense the anxiety detangling the longer he stares at the floor tiles, cold mug in his hand leaving condensation against the bare skin of his chest. Hyunwoo doesn’t know if time stretches or hurries when he lets himself zone out and meditate to the monotone ticking of the round clock above the door, and he doesn’t care for it much. He will eventually go back to the warmth of Kihyun’s arms and the comfort of his soft bed, so he lets himself have this small interlude to ruminate on the why.

 

His memoir defense is in four days, his sleep schedule has been irregular for more than a month and his “me” time has been cut so short by his supervisor’s last minute revisions that Hyunwoo doesn’t remember when he had last dedicated an hour or two to himself, much less to Kihyun. And he tells himself it shouldn’t have gotten to this point, that he should have had the foresight to properly manage his time, if only to give a little bit back to the man who made so much effort to seek him out in the first place. Yet another part of him knows it can’t be helped. He’s already been through this stress before, they’ve both been — separately, that is, so he doesn’t expect Kihyun not to be there for him. He _knows_ Kihyun will be there, as he has been for the past four months and has promised to be for as long as they don’t forget to make the effort to care about one another.

 

The sound of slippers dragging over parquet reach Hyunwoo’s ears and he crooks his neck towards the door, looking at where ceramic meets wood, waiting for Kihyun to walk in. Socked feet enter the field his vision right as he expects them, eyes trailing up Kihyun’s bare legs over his soft white shirt to rest on his sleepy, puffed up face. His eyelids are shut tight, eyebrows scrunched in an effort to keep as much of the kitchen light out and away as possible.

 

The tightness pulling at Hyunwoo’s ribcage dissolves soon after Kihyun wraps lean, warm arms around his waist, and rests a soft cheek against his right shoulder. His right hand almost automatically finds its way home at the bottom on Kihyun’s back, and they stay there for a few seconds, enjoying the quiet noises of the building as it settles. The fridge buzzes as a sigh reaches Hyunwoo’s ears.

 

“Sorry I woke you,” he says through a croak, light fingertips grazing just above the hem of Kihyun’s boxers.

 

“S’ okay, Hyunnie,” Kihyun mumbles against his throat, hot damp breath meeting his collarbone. And Hyunwoo chuckles, almost imperceptibly, because he _loves it_ when he calls him that. “Bad dream?”

 

Hyunwoo nods with a low acquiescing hum. The way Kihyun squeezes him just a bit tighter sounds like _do you want to talk about it?_ , and the fact that he doesn’t raise up from where his face is melted against his skin says _you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to_.

 

And he really doesn’t want to tell him about his nightmare, about how he’s been dreaming for weeks on end about losing him, in a different gruesome scenario every night. Not because Kihyun will make fun of him for it because it’s so irrational and nonsensical, not because he’ll mock him for being so shaken up over a dream. But because it’s temporary. The Kihyun in his arms is more permanent, more concrete, his anchor to reality when his mind is focusing anywhere but.

 

So he’d rather focus on that, on here and now, on the man in his arms and in his life rather than the one in his dreams and in his anxieties.

 

Kihyun’s breath against his neck grows slower and deeper, and he lets out a low whine as he tries to drag Hyunwoo toward the door. “ _Babyyyyyyy_ , let’s go back to bed,” he mewls, feet lightly tapping against the floor as his legs draw closer to the warmness of Hyunwoo’s. “It’s so cold in here.”

 

Hyunwoo leaves his mug on the counter behind him and holds Kihyun closer, spidering his right hand up his back to lay right between his shoulder blades. He takes in the scents of jasmine and wild lavender from his skin and hides his face against the warmth of Kihyun’s neck. He closes his eyes, breathes out. Kihyun immediately understands and moves his arms up to meet between his shoulders right by his nape.

 

A hand comes to scratch light fingertips against his scalp and Hyunwoo melts further into safety, into reassurance, into home, into Kihyun. And it feels blue, a light and airy and fresh blue, and it comes back to him all at once, washing away the last remains of fear and blame.

 

“Just a minute,” he says, somewhere between a thought and a whisper, “please.”

 

“Mhm.”

 

Kihyun moves his hand up to card through Hyunwoo’s hair, his back muscles stretching and moving under his palm. He thinks about how he needs to get it cut for his presentation, and that Kihyun much prefers it like this. He’ll just have to grow it out when it’s all done, and he suppresses a laugh at the thought of the pout that won’t leave Kihyun’s lips and chin until then.

 

The clock above the door ticks the seconds away. Neither of them seem to mind that time is passing them by, shortening the sleep they have yet to get before the light of day comes to claim their attention. They stay like that for a bit, pressed against the counter in a mess of limbs until the fridge buzzes again, and Hyunwoo takes it as a hint that the kitchen may also need its own privacy, at this time of the day when it doesn’t expect any guests.

 

He bends his knees and travels his hands down to the back of Kihyun’s thighs, who immediately jumps up and crosses his legs around Hyunwoo’s waist. He takes the chance to leave a peck on his collarbone as he walks out the kitchen, a silent _thank you_ for simply being there.

 

When he’s done fumbling his way back to the bedroom, Kihyun hops off him to turn off the bathroom light that he’d left on to help them find their footing. Small hands meet Hyunwoo’s back and nudge him toward the mattress where his knees drop.

 

“Come on,” Kihyun says halfway through a yawn, and Hyunwoo smiles when his hands meet the bed and work at finding the edge of the covers. He lays on his side and waits for Kihyun to join him, to lay down behind him, twining their now slightly cold legs together. His chin fits perfectly in the dip between his neck and his shoulder, and the beating in his chest slows down to match the one pressing against his back.

 

“You’ll be fine,” Kihyun whispers, leaving a handful airy kisses on his bare shoulder as a hand caresses his upper arm, massaging heat back into his limbs. It feels much different than when he had woken up, frozen and unable to move, Kihyun right by his side yet so far away. This feels better. It feels good. Right.

 

Hyunwoo catches his hand, interlaces their fingers and presses his mouth to the back of it. It smells familiar, like home, and when Kihyun giggles behind him, he smiles and lets himself drift into sleep as _you’re welcome_ fades away from his ears.

 

When the light finds them, they’re sound asleep, and Hyunwoo would never admit to it out loud, but his favorite mornings are when he can feel Kihyun’s comforting weight sprawled over his back.

  


**Author's Note:**

> i have [twitter](https://twitter.com/moonipies) and [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/moonipies) if you'd like to reach me!


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